Philosophical Theology
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The Ontological Argument
The Cosmological Argument
The Design Argument
The Problem of Evil
1. The Concept of God:
How are we to define the term 'God'? First, distinguish ‘God' from
‘god.' Obviously, God is perfect, but how perfect?
More perfect than anything that does exist or could exist. Following
St. Anselm, we can define the term 'God' as follows:
'God' =df 'the being than which none more perfect is possible or can be
conceived'
2. Two Kinds of Proofs for the Existence of God:
a) A Posteriori: Proofs based on some facts about the world that
we know through experience. There are four sorts of
arguments:
(1) Arguments from Religious Experience
(2) Arguments from Miracles
(3) Arguments based on the fact that some
things in nature-specifically some structures in plants and animals--
seem to have been designed by some
intelligent force.
(4) Arguments based on the bare fact that
something exists.
b) A Priori: Proofs based not on any particular experience of
the world but instead on pure reason.
3. Arguments from Religious Experience and From Miracles:
a) The former depend on what we might call 'inner’ or
'private’ experience whereas the latter depend on publicly
observable phenomena.
b) I don’t want to be too dismissive of these arguments but they
face standard problems that are difficult to overcome:
(1) Religious experiences tend to be highly
personal or inner; critics question whether or not these experiences have
some other
explanation, such as a psychological explanation.
(2) Reported miracles often have other
explanations that do not involve the handiwork of God.
4. The Three Traditional Arguments:
a) In the history of philosophy and theology, three arguments have been
regarded as the strongest and most interesting:
(1) The Ontological Argument
(2) The Cosmological Argument
(3) The Teleological (or Design) Argument
5. A Note on Method: We shall proceed by what is sometimes called the Dialectical
Method. This involves:
a) stating and explaining the argument in a way that makes it look
plausible.
b) offering objections to the argument
c) giving replies to the objections, which will sometimes be regarded
as decisive but can also result in a reformulation
of the argument.
d) Think of these as opening moves in a debate or a chess game. If this
were a more advanced course, we’d pursue the
back and forth of objections and replies
further than we can in this course.
e) Students sometimes have trouble with this procedure, because it
requires them to understand something, which usually
means finding it convincing and then seeing why
it isn’t true. This, however, is about the only way philosophers have
to get at the truth, or at least to get close
to the truth.
6. The Ontological Argument
a) First formulated by St. Anselm in the 12th century
b) Reformulated by Descartes in his Meditations (1641)
c) I’ll start with an informal statement of the argument to give
you the main idea and then give a formal (i.e.,
premise-conclusion format) statement of the
argument.
d) Then we’ll look at some objections and replies.
7. An Informal Statement of the Ontological Argument:
a) When I think about things, whether they exist in reality or not,
they have a nature or essence.
b) So, when I think about a triangle, I am necessarily thinking about a
3-sided plane figure. It would be impossible
to think about a triangle and not think about a
3-sided plane figure. Indeed, whether I know it or not, I am also
thinking about a figure whose interior angles
add up to 180 degrees, though this takes a few steps to prove. This
is true whether or not there are any triangles
in reality, and of course, my thinking about such a thing does not
guarantee that it does exist in reality. But,
my thinking about something does guarantee that I am thinking about
something with a nature or essence.
c) What is the nature or essence of God? The nature or essence of a
thing is given in the definition of the term describing
that thing, e.g., a triangle can be defined as
a 3-sided closed plane figure, and that gives us the nature or essence of a
triangle.
d) How, then, are we to define the term 'God’? First, distinguish
‘God’ from ‘god.’ Obviously, God is perfect, but how
perfect? More perfect than anything that does
exist or could exist. Following St. Anselm, we can define the term 'God'
as follows:
'God' =df 'the being than which none
more perfect can be conceived.' Conceivable = logically possible.
e) The next step in the argument is to note that existence in reality
is a perfection in the sense that, it is more perfect to
exist in reality than not.
f) What follows from all this is that existence in reality belongs to
the nature or essence of a supremely perfect being.
This means that a supremely perfect being
exists and indeed must exist. According to this argument, a supremely
perfect being could no more fail to exist than
could a triangle fail to have three sides. And so, we prove the existence
of God simply by appeal to the concept
of God.
8. Let us represent the argument in the following manner:
(1) God has all perfections. (based on the definition of God)
(2) Existence in reality is a perfection.
Therefore,
(3) God has existence in reality (i.e., God exists).
9. Two Objections:
Something about this argument seems suspicious. It seems to quick, too
easy. Suspicions are not good objections, but
there are two serious objections to this argument.
a) the argument begs the question
b) the second premise is false.
10. Begging the question (at issue)
a) To beg the question is to assume in one of your
premises the very thing you are trying to prove in your conclusion.
It is a sin.
b) Example: (1) Abortion is murder.
(2) Murder is always wrong.
Therefore,
(3) Abortion is always wrong.
c) Where does the Ontological Argument beg the question?
Premise (1). To say that God has all perfections is to
already assume that God exists.
11. The second premise is false
a) Kant's objection is that existence is not a
perfection because it isn't even a property of things. What is a property?
(Other words for 'property':
characteristic, attribute) To ascribe a property to something is to say something
about
it, i.e., to describe it. But, says
Kant, when we say of something that it exists we are not describing it in any way.
b) Compare: Bring me a cold beer.
Bring me a cold existing beer.
c) What are perfections? Philosophical theology
standardly lists three: omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibene-
volence, to which Descartes adds
immutability and indivisibility. Clearly, these perfections are all properties of things.
But not existence. When we say of
something that it exists, we are not in any way describing it, as we are when we
say it is cold, red, etc. We're
simply saying it's one of the things there are in the universe. However, when we say of
something that it has some
perfection, e.g., omnipotence, we are describing it. To summarize this objection as
an
argument:
(1) All perfections
are properties.
(2) Existence is not a
property.
Therefore,
(3) Existence is
not a perfection.
12. How might Descartes respond to these objections? My strategy: First, I'll explain
Meinong's theory of pure objects and
then explain how this theory can be used to defeat the
first and then the second objection.
13. The Theory of Pure Objects
a) Meinong begins by distinguishing existence from
being. Although we use these terms synonymously, Meinong does
not. For him, anything thinkable
has being, whether it exists in reality or not. These things that have being Meinong
calls Pure Objects. Some pure
objects exist in reality and some do not.
b) Examples: the Empire State Building, an office
building of pure gold, the present queen of England,the present king
of France, Pegasus, last year's
winner of the Kentucky Derby
c) It is important to note that Pure Objects are not
ideas. Your idea of Pegasus is numerically different from my idea
of Pegasus, but we are both
thinking about Pegasus.
14. Response to the first objection:
The first premise does not beg the question because when
you use the word 'God' you are talking about a pure object,
and since not all pure objects exist, you are not
assuming the existence of God. All you are assuming is that he has being.
15. Response to the second objection:
When we say of something that it exists, we are
describing it. We are putting it in the class of pure objects that exist
rather than the class of pure objects that do not exist.
So, the argument against (2) fails. Be sure to indicate what does
not follow.
16. My problem with the argument: It is not clear what it means to say that
existence in reality is a perfection. Philosophical
theology traditionally lists the following perfections:
a) omnipotence
b) omniscience
c) omnibenevolence
d) eternality
e) immutability
f) indivisibility (incompositeness)
How is it that existence is supposed to be on this list?
The only thing these properties have in common is that
they admit of degrees but existence is not like
that.
17. Another Problem: Is Premise (1) really true?
a) If God actually exists, it must be possible for Him to
exist. Some philosophers, however, have questioned whether
or not it is possible for a being
to have all perfections.
b) An incompossible set of properties can be defined
as follows:
It is not possible for something to
have all of them.
c) Example: Consider the following set: {being a
brother, being an only child}
d) The charge is that maybe the set of all perfections is
an incompossible set. Suppose, for example, it includes the
property of being swifter
than any other being. A being cannot have this property and be immutable
e) This objection is hard to assess because we don’t
know what a perfection really is. All we have is this list from
traditional philosophical theology.
1. Three of St. Thomas's famous five ways were versions of the Cosmological Argument. In
these arguments he tries to
prove the existence of:
a) an unchanged changer
b) an uncaused cause
c) a being that must, by its very nature, exist.
This last is the one we are interested in.
2. Immediate Objection:
Proving c) does not, by itself, prove the existence of God--an
all-perfect being. Quite right, say Aquinas, Leibniz, and
Clarke. This is only the first part of the argument. The second part of
the argument attempts to prove that only God
could be such a being. We shall ignore this part of the argument and
concentrate on the first part of it, since unless that
part can be proved, God's existence must remain unproved.
3. Basic Concepts:
a) x is a dependent being =df x's existence is accounted for or
explained by the causal activity of another being.
b) x is a self-existent being =df The reason for x's existence
lies within x's own nature, i.e., it's part of x's nature or
essence that it exists.
4. A Note on the term ‘Cause':
The term is used to mean a number of different things. If I ask,
‘What is the cause of X?' I might mean:
a) What event brought about the occurrence or existence of x?
b) What is the purpose for which X exists or occurs?
c) There are other senses of ‘cause' as well, which we need not go
into here. There is, however, a more general of the
term, which is how I shall use it:
x is the cause of y =df x is the reason for,
or explains y
‘Reason' does not mean ‘purpose'. This includes all the other
senses of the term ‘cause.' To put this point in other words,
I shall use the term ‘cause', ‘reason', and
‘explanation' as synonyms.
d) We're now ready to state the Cosmological Argument. My version is a little
different from Rowe's but it is essentially
the same.
5. The Cosmological Argument:
(1) Every being is a dependent being, or a self-existent being or
exists for no reason at all.
(2) No being exists for no reason at all.
(3) It is not the case that every being is a dependent being.
Therefore,
(4) There is at least one self existent being.
Intuitively, the argument should seem to be valid.
6. The Premises:
a) The first premise is obviously true, since it exhaustively lists all
the possibilities.
b) The key premises are (2) and (3). Both are said to depend on the
Principle of Sufficient Reason. As a first approx-
imation, this principle says,
(*) There is a reason for everything.
c) Three Questions:
(1) What does it mean?
(2) Supposing it is true, does it justify (2)
and (3)?
(3) Is (*) actually true?
7. What Does (*) Mean?
a) As it is stated, there are two ambiguities
b) First Ambiguity: Does it say that there is one overarching
reason for everything (i.e., the entire universe) or does it
just say that there is some reason or other for
every particular thing in the universe (i.e., possibly different reasons for
different things)?
c) Well, you can interpret words in any way you want, but we shall
interpret this distributively rather than collectively.
We do this for one very good reason: if we
don't, we beg the question! After all, what we are trying to prove is that
there is one overarching reason for the entire
universe (i.e., God), and since this principle is supposed to support one
of the premises in an argument for the
existence of God, we don't want to suppose the very thing we are trying to prove
That's begging the question.
d) To put it another way, it may be that we can prove that if there is
some reason or other for every particular thing,
there must be some overarching reason for
everrything, but we don't want to start off by assuming that there is this
overarching reason.
e) Second Ambiguity: What do we mean by ‘thing'? We might
think this means ‘physical object', but that would be too
narrow. For example, if God exists, he's not a
physical object. There are other things that are not physical objects such
as ideas and:
(1) events or occurrences: winning the
Superbowl, shaving this morning, a lunar eclipse
(2) states of affairs: that I have brown hair,
that the Colorado Plateau is located in southern Utah, my car not starting
today.
Events and states of affairs have explanations
and they all have reasons or explanations.
f) To clear up these ambiguities, let us restate the Principle of
Sufficient Reason (PSR)
The Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR):
There must be a reason (explanation):
a) for the existence of any being
b) for any positive fact (i.e., state of affairs)
8. Question (ii):
Supposing it is true, does it justify (2) and (3)?
a) If we look at Premise (2) of the argument, we can see that it is
simply a restatement of PSRa. So, if PSRa is true,
(2) is true, since they say the same thing.
b) Premise (3) is based on PSRb. In other words, we can produce an
argument for Premise (3) using PSRb as
a premise.
(3') If every being were a
dependent being, there would be some positive fact for which there is no explanation.
(3") It is false that there is
a positive fact for which there is no explanation.
Therefore,
(3) It is not the case that every
being is a dependent being.
This is a valid argument and is
an instance of Modus Tollens.
9. The Premises:
a) Premise (3") is equivalent to PSRb. We'll talk about that shortly.
b) Consider now (3'). Why would proponents of the Cosmological Argument
assert it?
c) Consider a very simple universe, U* in which there is one and only one
being that exists at any given time. Call it
Ao. It exists for a while and then gives rise
to another individual, call it A1. And so on.
. . . . An-m . . . A0
(insert arrow) A1 (insert arrow) A2 (insert
arrow) A3 (insert arrow) A4 (insert arrow) A5
. . . An
d) For any of the A's, there is a reason for its existence,
namely,
its predecessor. So, PSRa is true of this universe
But, say proponents of the Cosmological
Argument, PSRb would not be satisfied in this universe. Reason:
There would be some postiive unexplained
fact: Why there any any A's at all. To say the same thing in other words,
(3') If every being were a dependent
being, there would be some positive fact for which there is no explanation.
10. Where We Stand:
a) We've shown how the two key premises are supposed to be
justified by the two parts of the PSR.
b) The whole argument now depends on PSRa and PSRb. In other
words, if the PSR is true, then (4) in the original
argument is true.
11. Rowe's Challenge to the PSR:
a) Actually, he does not challenge all of it, just PSRb
(explain the strategy)
b) He asks, Why is U* impossible?
c) If such a universe existed, that would mean that in
answer to the question, 'Why does anything exist at all?', the correct
answer might be: It is possible, for all
we know, that it is just a brute unexplained fact!
d) Now you might say that can't be but why?
e) Rowe points out no one has ever tried to prove PSRb.
12. The Status of PSRb:
a) Rowe points out that no one has ever really offered any
argument for PSRb, so the question remains, Why accept it?
b) One possible answer is that it is self-evidently true.
To say that a statement is self-evidently true is to say more than
it is obviously true. Rather,
it says that it carries its own evidence with it. It is self-justifying.
c) Now how could a statement be self-justifying? One way is if
its truth is so obvious that you can just see it once you
understand it. Statements whose
truth depends solely on the meanings of the terms would fit this category. Simple
propositions of arithmetic and
geometry would also fit this category. Examples:
All bachelors are unmarried.
A sister is female.
x=x
1 + 1 = 2.
A square has more sides than a triangle.
d) A (Partial) Definition of Self Evidence:
A proposition p is self-evident
if and only if
No one who understands the
meanings of the words used to express p can doubt its truth.
e) Notice that this says more than everyone believes it.
It's a claim about what one can doubt. Here's another way of
looking at it: If someone claims to
doubt a self-evident truth, it would be appropriate to claim that he does not really
understand the meanings of the terms
involved. E.g., All bachelors are unmarried.
f) The following are not self-evident:
The moon is round.
The sum of the interior angles of a
triangle = 180 degrees.
God exists.
All men are mortal.
13. Rowe's Objection:
a) Very simply, it's that PSRb is not self-evident. His argument for
this can be stated as follows:
(1) No self-evident truth can be doubted by
anyone who understands it.
(2) Rowe understands PSRb and (yet) doubts it.
Therefore,
(3) PSRb is not a self-evident truth.
b) He also considers another response, that PSRb is a presupposition
that we all make. I won't discuss this.
14. Final Remarks on the PSR:
a) Notice that the PSR does not require an explanation for
the non-existence of an object or the explanation of a negative
fact.
b) Examples:
Why there is no 12 foot beach ball in
this room.
Pigs do not have wings.
These things do not seem to call out for
explanation, even though they are true facts.
c) But what constitutes a positive fact or a negative fact seems
to be purely a matter of how our language works and
not a feature of reality. Consider
the fact, if it is a fact, that Christ is immortal, Christ will live forever, Christ will
not
die. Is this a positive or negative
fact? There seems to be no answer to this question. Or, more accurately, what is
positive or negative is not the fact but
how we characterize it in our language.
d) Upshot: This seems to suggest that the PSR and
our inclination to accept it is purely a feature of the human mind
and not a feature of reality. Indeed,
the notion of an explanation seems to be something for humans. If there is a
God, perhaps all truths are self-evident
for him.
e) Final Conclusion: Premise (3) of the argument
depends on PSRb, but we don't know if PSRb is true, though it may
in fact be true. (3) is doubtful, and
thus so is (4).
1. The Design Argument or The Teleological Argument:
a) This is perhaps the most natural and appealing argument for the
existence of God. While some believe or argue for the
proposition that everything in nature is
designed or that nature itself is designed, the best version of this argument points
to design in animal and plant structures. It
seems unreasonable to believe that many of these things are put together by
chance.
b) Structures such as the anteater's snout, the skull of the
woodpecker, and the human eye seem to be designed like, for
example, a watch or an automobile.
c) Since there can be no design without a designer, there must be a
designer of these objects and structures in the natural
world.
d) Because the designs are so good or intricate, only God could do it.
Hence, God exists.
2. The Argument:
(1) Some things in the natural world are designed.
(2) If some things in the natural world are designed, then there is a
designer.
Therefore,
(3) There is a designer for some things in the natural world.
(4) Only God could design these things (i.e., if there is a designer,
it must be God).
Therefore,
(5) God exists.
3. Analogies:
a) Premise (1) depends on an analogy between, in Paley's case, a watch
and natural objects.
b) Analogical arguments make most philosophers uncomfortable not
because they are all no good but because they
are hard to evaluate. How alike do two things
have to be in order for us to say, probably, they are alike in this other
respect?
c) For example, how alike do our cars have to be for us to say that
because your car sounds like mine, yours prob-
ably has a hole in its muffler? Suppose, for
example, I live up north where they put salt on the roads in the winter
and you don't. Suppose the sounds are
similar but not exactly alike. So all this is pretty inconclusive.
4. A Better Way to Proceed:
a) We can treat Premise (1) as a hypothesis, which is intended to
explain certain features of these natural objects.
Examples:
(1) the fact that the human eye is so
well-suited to vision.
(2) the fact that anteaters' snouts are so well
suited to digging out ants.
(3) Why hawks have such sharp eyesight that
allows them to catch mice.
(4) The skulls of woodpeckers.
b) Suppose now that there is one explanation that is better than any
others at explaining these facts. In such a case, that
will be the most reasonable one to believe.
c) We have come upon a type of argument I've not talked about before,
viz., inference to the best explanation.
5. Inference to the Best Explanation:
a) Suppose we want to explain Smith's death from gunshot wounds.
b) Consider the following argument:
(1) Jones stood to gain $1 million from Smith's
death.
(2) 3 reliable witnesses testified that they
saw Jones do it.
(3) Jones owned the murder weapon.
(4) Smith's dying words were, "Jones did
it."
(5) Jones confessed to the crime.
Therefore,
(6) Jones killed Smith.
c) Is this argument valid? No. Is it nonetheless a good argument? YES.
6. Inductive Strength:
a) An argument is inductively strong if and only if:
Given that the premises are true, it is
unlikely that the conclusion is false.
b) Contrast and compare with validity.
c) General Principle: All inferences to the best explanation are
inductively strong.
7. The Argument for Design in Natural Objects:
(1a) Animals are natural objects (i.e., not artifacts).
(1b) Animal parts and organs are means that are well-suited or adapted
to particular ends or purposes the animal has.
(1c) These adaptations of means to ends is best explained as the result
of conscious plan or design.
Therefore (probably)
(1) Some things in the natural world are designed.
8. The Premises:
a) (1a) and (1b) are pretty obvious.
b) The key premise is (1c). Paley would say that this is true because
this is the only genuine explanation for adaptive
structures. These structures could have arisen
by mere chance but that is unlikely. That's not an explanation or at least
not a good one.
c) Paley would say it is virtually certain that design is involved.
Illustrate by analogy with the watch.
9. Objections:
a) There are two main problem with this argument: both (1c) and (4) are
false. Consider first (1c): Design is not the best
explanation for adaptive structures. There is a
better alternative, viz., the Darwin-Wallace theory of natural selection.
(To be fair, it is important to note that Paley
predates Darwin and Wallace.)
b) The Theory of Natural Selection (sometimes called, ‘Descent
with Modification):
(1) characteristics (i.e., structures, organs)
are inherited,
(2) random variations (often small) of
characteristics among individuals (mutation, recombination of genes, random
genetic
drift)
(3) competitive struggle for survival.
The external environment acts on the
species to select out those characteristics that are most conducive for survival.
Over time, these characteristic come to
predominate and it looks like animal parts and organs were designed for
that particular environment
(niche), but they weren't. The adaptive structures were simply selected by the external
forces of the environment and the
struggle for survival. The exact mechanism by which characteristics are
intergenerationally transmitted,
was unknown at the time of Darwin and Wallace but has since been articulated
and developed into what is now
called modern genetics.
c) Why this is a better explanation that the Design Hypothesis:
(1) It gives a mechanism. That is, it explains
how and why adaptive structures arise in species; the hypothesis of special
creation does
neither.
(2) It explains the distribution of species
over the face of the earth, i.e., why some species are found in some environ-
ments and
not others. The design hypothesis can't do that.
(3) It yields specific testable predictions
about, for example, the fossil record which are not matched by any alternative
hypothesis.
10. God and the Theory of Evolution:
a) The existence of God is compatible with the theory of
evolution.
b) The theory does, however, knock out a key premise in a
key argument in natural theology, which is its real historical
significance.
11. Problems with Premise (4):
a) Hume makes 3 points in criticizing this premise:
(1) We don't know if there is
perfection in the design because we have no other worlds to compare this world to.
(2) Even if there is perfection in
the design, there may not be perfection in the designer. The designer may be a
relatively imperfect being who has made minor improvements on the work of other imperfect
beings and so
on back.
(3) There is no guarantee of one
(perfect) designer.
b) The main idea is this: To prove that God exists, you
have to prove quite a lot because God is an all-perfect being.
Showing only that
"something" exists is not enough, at least in the Judeo-Christian tradition.
1. Where We Stand
The fact, if it is a fact, that no one has proved the existence of
God does not imply that God does not exist--only that it
has not been proved.
a) It is open to the theist to proclaim his belief in God is a matter
of faith, which while not rationally supported, is
nonetheless not irrational.
b) It is just this view that the atheist will challenge. Belief in God,
says the atheist, is positively irrational. Why?
Because God's existence can be disproved.
2. The Problem of Evil:
a) is not how to get rid of it or how to live with it. It is not a
practical problem at all.
b) Rather, it is an attempt to disprove the existence of God--to make
the case for atheism.
c) Basic Idea:
According to the Judeo-Christian conception of
God, God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good. An all-good
being wants to eliminate or prevent evil
insofar as he knows about it and is able to do something about it. An all-
knowing being knows about all evil. And, an
all-powerful being can eliminate or prevent all evil. So, it would seem
to follow that if there is such a being, there
is no evil. However, since we know that evil exists, God is either not
all-powerful (i.e., there is some evil he
cannot prevent or eliminate), or not all-knowing (i.e., there is some evil he does
not know about), or not all-good (i.e., there
is some evil he does not want to prevent). But then he isn't God, with a
capital G, i.e., God does not exist. Now there
may be some other deity, perhaps very much like God, as we under-
stand him, and the atheist isn't denying this.
What he is denying is the existence of an all-perfect creator of the
universe who watches over and cares for us. In
other words, he denies the existence of God, in the Judeo-Christian
conception of the deity.
3. A More Formal Statement:
a) To understand the formal statement of the problem, we need a couple
of definitions.
D1:A set of statements is inconsistent =df
It is logically impossible for all the members of that set to be true.
D2 A statement is a contradiction =df it is
logically impossible for that statement to be true.
Often, but not always, a contradiction has the
form: P and not-P
D3 A Reductio Ad Absurdem argument has the
following characteristics:
(i) it is valid.
(ii) its conclusion is a contradiction
(iii) its premises are inconsistent, i.e., at least one of the premises is false.
b) The Main Idea: The atheist wants to prove that the following
set of statements is inconsistent:
(1) Evil exists.
(2) God exists.
(3) God is all-powerful.
(4) God is all-knowing.
(5) God is all-good.
c) What's the point? If the atheist can prove that these are
inconsistent, he can say the following: Since (1) is true, at least
one of (2)-(5) is false. If at least one of
these is false, then God does not exist.
4. The Strategy:
a) The atheist will try to derive the proposition that evil does not
exist from (2)-(5)by using some additional premises that he
thinks are pretty obviously true, viz.,
(6) If God is all-powerful and all-knowing,
then He can prevent all evil.
(7) If God is all-good, then He wants to
prevent all evil.
b) Given these additional premises, it follows that:
(8) God can prevent all evil and wants to prevent all evil.
c) If a being wants to prevent something and can prevent it, he can. So, it is obvious that:
(9) If God can prevent all evil and wants to prevent all evil, then evil does not exist.
d) From which it follows that:
(10) Evil does not exist.
Therefore,
(11) Evil exists and evil does not exist.
5. The Logic of the Argument: How does this argument prove the non-existence of God
if it succeeds?
1. (11) must be false.
2. (11) follows from (1) and (10), so one of those must be false.
3. (1) is true, so (10) must be false.
4. (10) follows from (8) and (9) so one of those must be false.
5. Since (9) is true, (8) must be false.
6. (8) follows from (2)-(7), so at least one of these is false.
7. But (6) and (7) are true.
8. So, at least one of (2)-(5) are false.
9. But if any of these is false, (2) is false.
6. How Might the Theist Respond?
The only possibilities for the theist are to reject or challenge (1),
(6), (7), and (9). (9) seems pretty hard to resist because of
the general principle on which it is based. So is (6). If God really is
all-powerful and all-knowing, he could prevent all evil.
How? By creating nothing at all!! Let us consider some objections and
replies.
7. Objection #1 and Reply:
a) Objection: Premise (1) is false. Evil does not really exist.
It is an illusion. If we could see the universe from God's point of
view, the things that seem to be evil to us are
really not.
b) Reply: Though this view has some popularity among Eastern
mystics, it is not part of the Judeo-Christian tradition. In that
tradition, evil is quite real. It is something
to be fought against and resisted. More to the point, (1) is obviously true. See
Doestoevsky. Famine, disease, war and
pestilence are genuine evils.
8. Objection #2 and Reply: This and all subsequent objections are objections to
Premise (7). They attempt to explain why an
all-good God would not want to prevent all evil.
a) Objection: This one says that even though God is all-good, he
does not want to prevent all evil, because God's goodness
is fundamentally different from ours. Goodness
in humans prompts people to act to allievate suffering and bring happiness.
God operates from a different perspective and
framework. So, even if he is all-good, he does not try to eliminate or
prevent evil as we understand it.
b) Reply: Two points to be made. (i) God, as conceived of in
Christianity and Judaism is not an impersonal force; he is a
personal God, interested in us and what happens
to us. So its not as if good and evil mean totally different things to us and
to God. (ii) Relatedly, this objection
essentially concedes the point. It admits that God is not all-good as we understand it.
9. Objection #3 and Reply:
a) Ojection: This objection to the claim that an all-good God
does not want to prevent all evil is based on the following
observation: Sometimes evil is necessary
as a means to something good. Some examples:
(1) People must make mistakes which are
productive of evil, but they can learn from them. Indeed, they can only learn by
making
mistakes. Analogy of parents and their children.
(2) Sometimes people in positions of power and
authority have to do things that create evil, but only as means to some
further
end. E.g., Truman and the bomb. This decision to drop the atomic bomb produced enormous
evil but it was a
means to
preventing even greater evil.
(3) Some medical treatments cause pain but the
painful treatment is necessary for some good.
So, the idea is that even though God is
all-good, he does not want to prevent all good. It is often said that the Lord works
in mysterious ways, and the idea here is that
even though there is evil in the world, this evil is necessary as a means to
some greater good, which counter-balances and
outweighs the evil.
b) Reply: The problem with this objection is that it works
only if we give up on the proposition that God is omnipotent. If
God really is all-powerful, he is not
bound by the laws of nature. He can produce the effect (learning by humans) without
the cause (making mistakes).
10. Objection #4 and Reply:
a) Objection: This objection to Premise (7) begins with
the distinction between what is causally necessary and what is
logically necessary. God, as an omnipotent
being, is beyond the laws of cause and effect but is not beyond the laws of
logic. Some evils are not causally necessary
for some good but logically necessary, so that it would be literally impossible
for the good to exist without the evil. The
good and evil go together to form a kind of organic unity. God knows this (of
course) and since He is all good, He does not
want to prevent all evil because by so doing He would also prevent the
good. Some examples:
(1) Courage (good) and fear and danger(evil)
(2) Compassion (good) and suffering (evil)
(3) The gradual elimination of suffering or
injustice (good) and the suffering or injustice (evil)
b) Let us call pain, suffering, and injustice, etc. 1st order evils.
Let us call courage, compassion, the gradual elimination of
first order evils 2nd order goods. If the 2nd
order goods are more valuable than the 1st order evils they contain, then
an all good being would not wish to eliminate
all such evils, which means that (7) is false.
c) Reply: There is none! This is a good objection. However, the
atheist can reformulate his argument to take this into
account. To see how this works, we need a
definition.
11. Absorbed Evils:
A state of affairs contains an absorbed evil if and
only if:
(i) A contains some 1st order evil which is
logically necessary for some 2nd order good.
(ii) The positive value of the 2nd order good
outweights the negative value of the first order evil.
12. Now the atheist can reformulate his challenge by claiming that not all evils are
absorbed evils. That is not all evils are
logically necessary components of states of affairs which
are, on balnace, good.
a) There are some 1st order evils such as pain and
suffering which are not the objects of compassion or any other
higher order goods. Let us
call such suffering, pointless suffering
b) There are also some higher order evils which are
not components of anything that is on balance good. Cowardice,
cruelty, etc. The
atheist isn't saying they are all like this. Some might be logically necessary components
of higher
order goods, but not
all of them are. Let us call such cases gratuitous wickedness.
c) To summarize, the atheist says that there are some
unabsorbed evils that an all good God would want to prevent
(and, of course, if he
was all powerful and all knowing, would be able to prevent). We can reformulate the
atheist's
argument to take this
into account as follows:
13. The Revised Problem of Evil:
(1') Unabsorbed evil exists.
(2) God exists.
(3) God is all-powerful.
(4) God is all-knowing.
(5) God is all-good.
(6') If God is all-powerful and all-knowing, then He can
prevent all unabsorbed evil.
(7') If God is all-good, then He wants to prevent all
unabsorbed evil.
Therefore,
(8') God can prevent all unabsorbed evil and wants to
prevent all unabsorbed evil.
(9') If God can prevent all evil and wants to prevent all
evil, then evil does not exist.
Therefore,
(10') Unabsorbed evil does not exist.
Therefore,
(11') Unabsorbed evil exists and unabsorbed evil does not
exist.
14. The Free Will Defense:
a) We now come to the most powerful defense of theism--actually it is
an attack on the case for atheism, i.e., the above
argument.
b) The theist challenges (7') based on the following considerations:
God recognizes that the universe is a better place for
having free beings in it., i.e., beings who
have the freedom to do right or wrong. So, he wants to create such beings. But
such beings will sometimes do the wrong thing,
i.e., do evil. God foresees this (because he is omniscient) and can prevent
it (because he is omnipotent) but does not want
to prevent it because, all hings considered, it is better to have a universe
with such evils and the free beings who cause
it than neither. The positive value of the free choices outweighs the negative
value of the evil that sometimes occurs. Now of
course God could prevent these unabsorbed evils from occurring, but if
he stepped in every time some unaborbed evil
was about to occur and prevented it, the beings in question wouldn't
really be free. And not even God can make
beings both free and not free. So, he does not want to prevent all unab-
sorbed evil, even though he is all good.
c) We can express this argument more formally as follows:
(1) An all-good God wants free beings to exist.
(2) All unabsorbed evil is the result of the
actions of free beings.
(3) If (1) and (2) are true, then (all things
considered) an all-good God does not want to prevent all unabsorbed evil.
Therefore,
(4) An all-good God does not want to prevent
all unabsorbed evil.
Note that (4) says the same thing as:
(7) is false.
d) Where we stand. This argument, if successful, does not prove the
existence of God, but it does defeat the atheist's
challenge to theism.
15. The Atheist's Reply:
a) The atheist would challenge both premises (1) and (2) of
this argument.
b) Problems with Premise (1): What (1) actually says
is that an all-good God most prefers a universe in which there are
free beings, no matter what they
do. But this seems implausible. We can admit that an all-good God would not want
to prevent all evil, since he would
thereby be preventing absorbed evils, including absorbed evils produced by free
beings, since, by definition,
absorbed evils are counterbalanced by some good. But, it seems that an all-good God
would most prefer a universe in
which free beings create no unabsorbed evils (e.g., pointless suffering). Now it is
within God's power and knowledge to
do this. Here's why: In deciding whether or not to create YOU or any other
being, God can foresee
everything that you and every other being that he might create will do. Suppose you are a
being who will at some point
be responsible for some unabsorbed evil. There are other beings he could have created
who, of their own free will,
create only absorbed evils. So, the question for the theist is why God would not create
such beings. We need not
suppose that God is making them create only unabsorbed evils. Instead, he simply surveys
all the possible beings that
he might create. If he is all good, it seems that he would most prefer to create only
beings
who, whatever they
freely do, create only absorbed evils. So, (1) is false.
c) Problems with Premise (2): There are even
more serious problems with (2), All unabsorbed evil is caused by the
actions of free beings. It
seems that there are unabsorbed evils that are not caused by the actions of free beings.
The
most obvious category here
are the so-called natural evils, such as the evils associated with natural disasters like|
earthquakes. Example:
The Lisbon earthquake of 1908 in which 10,000 people died, many in church. People are
partially crushed in
earthquakes and die an horrible death over many hours or days. Of course, such tragedies
are
often the occasion of heroism
and compassion (cf. the story of Baby Jessica who fell down the well in Texas a
number of years ago),
but much of the suffering is literally untold, and thus unabsorbed.
16. The Theist Reply:
a) The objection to Premise (2) can be dealt with by
invoking Satan--a free non-human being who is responsible for
natural, unabsorbed evil. But
is that really plausible?
b) The problem with Premise (1) is a little harder to deal
with, but the theist has a response of sorts. That response
involves shifting, or more
exactly, refocusing the burden of proof.
c) It is not up to the theist to explain why (7') is false.
Rather, the burden is on the atheist to show that (7') is true.
After all, it is his argument! Why
should we accept it? He has offered no argument for it. Maybe we don't fully
understand God's goodness.
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